Apple Remote Arduino shield

[Computergeek] made an Arduino Shield in order to use it as an Apple remote. We like the construction technique that he used; taking perf-board and soldering the circuit and using stripped wire to interface with the pin sockets on the Arduino. He’s written the code needed to function as an Apple Remote but this shield has a lot more potential. This is an excellent opportunity to delve into the different IR protocols out there and create a universal remote for all of your random devices. We’d also want to give it a try as a TV-B-Gone.

The parts are easy to find or salvage without putting in an order. We’re not certain about his design, he should probably have invited a resistor to the party the two IR LEDs are having.

I’ve refused the Arduino kool-aid before this, but I had a quick science fair timer project to do for the kids, so instead of yet again setting up the PIC C compiler etc I ordered one.
Man they are soooo easy to use with the simple included libraries and IDE. The project took 1/4th the time it would have with a PIC.

As the author of the Arduino Apple Remote library, I’m super excited that my work has (tangentially) made Hack-a-day. I welcome any patches, as well as pointers to other projects using it. Thanks for featuring a project that featured my project.

@ladz
what you talking about !?
in MPLAB you can real time debug, calculate each cycle time and use any language you like and most of them come with so large libraries that manual look like encyclopedia

If not including a resistor in series with a current mode device isn’t wrong, then connecting two current mode devices in parallel certainly is.

If you wouldn’t do either of these things with power diodes, why is it that people think it’s okay with LE Diodes? Because they *look* like little globes? Is the need for current drive *really* that hard to understand?

I have examples of LED torches (flashlights) that depend entirely on the bulk resistance of the diodes in parallel and internal resistance of the battery in series – utterly bloody horrible “design”. Some LED’s do expire, and they make very poor use of the batteries. Yes, even manufacturers are getting away with such abominations, but they *are* abominations, not examples to emulate.

Adding a transistor stage will allow more current to be switched, but current setting resistors then become mandatory. IR LED’s in particular have the lowest cut-in voltage at 1.2 volts, and their V/I curve then rises almost vertically with a slope of amps per volt!

See;

I don’t think a “reflector” is actually going to help much because most of the light is already being lensed into about a 30 degree forward cone. What does work is a bit more lensing to concentrate the energy into a narrower beam.

@therian
I’m not knocking PICs at all.
The PIC / MPLab and assorted compilers and certainly have more flexibility and power than Arduino. But for quick hobby projects that don’t require any optimization for manufacturability, battery life, speed, etc (read: actual engineering) it seems like the Arduino environment is ideal.

Cool, so between Steve’s idea to use your computer’s line-in port and Josh’s idea to use an Arduino, everyone should be able to do the signal measurements even if they don’t have an oscilloscope. Thanks for the tips!